VICE CHAIRMAN'S FOREWORD

The Honorable Larry Combest
United States Representative from Texas

Protecting National Security Secrets
in a "Culture of Openness"

The difficulty of the challenge faced by the Commission is immediately apparent from the
Commission's title. In Title IX of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1994 and
1995, Congress established a commission to both protect and reduce government secrecy. These
goals are divergent at best, and in some respects they actually conflict. Reasonable access to
information is a prerequisite for maintaining an informed citizenry, and for maintaining public confidence
in the institutions of government. Thus, it was the task of this body to find ways to reconcile
the public's legitimate need for access to information with the Government's legitimate need to
protect vital national security secrets.

This is a thoughtful and well-intentioned effort, and the recommendations in the report are basically
sound as they strive to achieve a balance between security and openness. But no fallible human
institution can achieve perfect balance, and this Commission is no exception. I unequivocally
endorse the public's right of access to much government-held information, and I concur in the
Commission's finding that too much information is classified and kept too long in secret. But I also
believe this report may genuflect too far toward the "culture of openness."

If the government's information security and classification system must lean one way or the other, it
should err on the side of secrecy. The question is how far the ship of state can list to one side or the
other without taking on water and capsizing. Only time and experience can tell if the tilt is too great
or too slight in this instance. But lawmakers and policymakers, as well as members of the general
public who read this report, must be aware that this is not an abstract intellectual issue. The U.S.
Constitution charges the Federal Government with the duty of providing for the common defense and
securing the blessings of liberty. Because the Government must pursue those vital purposes in a
dangerous world--even more volatile and uncertain than ever in this "Age of Chaos"--the Government
must be able to keep secrets. Failure to do so, even out of a well-intentioned desire to open up
the processes and archives of government, may cause irreparable harm to the nation, and may cause
loss of life. Openness and heightened access are laudable in themselves, but in the act of enshrining
them as public policy we also have to beware of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Protecting Secrets: A Cold War Legacy or Abiding National Interest

The correct balance between security and openness can be achieved only if we think clearly about
the underlying reasons for both. First, we have to dispense with the false notion that protecting the
secrecy of sensitive national security information is exclusively a result of the Cold War; in effect,
that the impulse to secrecy is an aberration, a practice that can be safely dispensed with now that the
Soviet threat is gone. Espionage directed against the United States has not ended. Threats to the
continental United States, to our citizens and troops abroad, and to our vital interests have not ended.
If anything they are proliferating, so that the dangers, while perhaps less lethal than those of the
former Soviet Union, are more widespread and less manageable.

As Chairman Moynihan correctly points out, the government secrecy system did not start with the
Cold War, but began during another conflict, with the Espionage Act of 1917. That history should be
instructive to those who would seek to cripple or dismantle the nation's ability to keep secrets on the
grounds that "the Cold War is over." In one sense, the cold war of struggle and competition between
nations is never over. Intelligence collection and the corresponding need to protect vital information,
and the need to ensure the reliability and loyalty of government officials who handle that information,
will not cease as long as the United States remains a free and independent nation. Indeed, this
remains a fundamental requirement of statecraft of any nation in today's world, not just the United
States.

Secrecy and National Security

The great English critic and lexicographer Samuel Johnson once said that "patriotism is the last
refuge of a scoundrel." We should keep that in mind when national security is invoked as a reason
to perpetuate government excess or abuse. But common sense also says that some demands of
national security are very real and necessary. National security is not simply one among many
government concerns. It should be foremost; it is the primary reason why government is created.

But defense of the nation is not something the citizen can do on his or her own. Only a collective
effort under the leadership of competent government can provide for the common defense, and this
of necessity includes some modest limits on our collective freedom, including the right to know
everything the Government needs to know to carry out this essential function. It is true that too
much secrecy, and the abuse of the public's right to know, can erode respect for government. On
the other hand, failure to carry out the vital mission of protecting the nation and the American people
will undermine the legitimacy of government far more quickly and surely.

The Moral Imperative of Keeping Secrets

In addition to keeping secrets that could affect national security, the Government also has a solemn
moral obligation to protect those individuals who provide information valuable to the United States,
especially those who do so at risk to their lives. This obligation extends to protecting the methods
used to gather the information as well as the sources, so that nothing points back to endanger them.
Skilled intelligence professionals can deduce almost as much from the method as from the content.
And the more material they have to work with, the easier it is to discern the patterns in the way the
United States gathers sensitive information. This is one risk, a potential unintended consequence, in
the hasty declassification and bulk release of government documents not sufficiently acknowledged
in this report. Some things that might not be apparent to the U.S. Government in the act of bulk
declassification could become clear to a hostile intelligence service sifting though a mass of documents;
for example, the modus operandi of U.S. intelligence, the matters of greatest interest to the
Government, and perhaps even the compromise of specific "sources and methods" are inevitable in
a hasty, bulk declassification.

The moral obligation to protect U.S. informants has to be constantly balanced against the public's
right of access. This commitment is at least on a par with the moral claims asserted by the "culture
of openness."

Is Secrecy a Burden?

The Commission was confronted on many levels with the lack of credibility and loss of respect for
the Government system of secrecy, born in part through overclassification, too much complexity, and
the well-known phenomenon of self-perpetuating bureaucracy.

It is true that secrecy is a form of regulation, and the American citizen labors under far too many
burdensome regulations as it is. But we have to draw a proper distinction between regulation that is
necessary and serves an agreed-upon purpose, one connected with the legitimate and necessary
function of government, and regulation which is not necessary. Good judgment is the only arbiter,
and that judgment has to be informed by an understanding of history, and of the "first principles"
which undergird this nation, especially those embodied in the Constitution.

The zeal to open up the process and to declassify information flows in part from a commendable
desire among the American people to restore confidence in their government. However, compromising
sensitive information through excessive haste to declassify and release will engender a loss of
confidence of a different kind. American citizens have a great deal of common sense. They do not
want their government withholding information they need to make an informed decision about
national policy. But neither do they want their government revealing things that ought to be concealed.
They accept the proposition that some things must be kept hidden. They are perfectly
capable of understanding that a violent shaking of the security and classification system could
compromise vital information and capabilities, and make it harder for the United States to collect
information in the future. Informants and allies abroad would be much more reluctant to confide in
U.S. intelligence or government officials for fear of being compromised in a rush to declassify.

The citizen is right to be concerned about a government that fosters a dark, closed, and oppressive
culture of secrecy. This was, after all, one of the most detested aspects of Communist culture in the
former Soviet bloc. But in the final analysis, it must also be said that a government that remains
within its proper Constitutional limits, that focuses on its proper Constitutional priorities, and that does
not attempt to meddle in the daily lives and routine affairs of its citizens, should not be feared if it also
attempts to keep some things secret. The growing fear of government secrecy is linked directly to
the growth of government power and intrusiveness. The Commission report does not address this
problem per se, but I believe this implication is clear to those not already biased in favor of big
government.

The Cost Factor

It will cost many millions to declassify rapidly and release the huge store of currently classified
material. Every government expenditure ought to have a cost-benefit. But it is difficult to justify an
extraordinary expenditure that goes beyond the costs of routine declassification as a benefit to the
taxpayer. Ramping up costs for bulk declassification might benefit special interests; for example,
historians, academic researchers, archivists, and policy groups who believe it is the government's
duty to radically alter its handling of classified material. But I am hard pressed to see how such an
expenditure will benefit taxpayers as a whole.

To be sure, the amount of classified material in government hands is enormous, too enormous. Some
of it is more than 25 years old, and presumably much can be released without jeopardizing the
nation's security or exposing intelligence sources and methods. But President Clinton's 1995 Executive
Order 12958 requires the automatic declassification of all documents over 25 years old by the
year 2000. Five years may seem like ample time for this process, but the amount of classified
material subject to the executive order means this five-year deadline will impose a huge and costly
burden on the Intelligence Community. Trained specialists and limited resources will have to be
diverted from intelligence functions far more vital to national security. From a cost-benefit standpoint,
an "issue-driven" approach would make more sense than the bulk declassification envisioned
under the Executive Order. Issue-driven declassification would focus on releasing documents with
public policy or historic significance, rather than engage in a heroic and costly effort to release the
entire store of classified documents in haste.

A Statutory Solution?

When confronted with a problem or an abuse, it is the natural tendency of Americans to pass a law.
We are great believers in the redemptive power of law; and, after all, that is what Congress does.
And, while I support many of the statutory recommendations in this report, I also acknowledge that
there is a limit to what can be achieved through a statute.

Any statute that emerges from the give-and-take of Congress might well end up having little or no
relation to what this Commission has recommended. It might be watered down in the consensus-building
process to the point where it provides no real reform or corrective action. And inadequate
legislation could be worse than none at all, for it would create the illusion that the problem was being
addressed, while doing little except breeding a dangerous complacency, or creating a new centralized
process that merely adds another layer of bureaucracy and cost.

We should pursue statutory solutions, but remain aware that there is no statutory substitute for sound
leadership, good management, commitment, competence, and accountability. Flawed and fallible
human beings will have to implement the law on a daily basis, so the matters at issue are subject to
daily pressures, judgments, biases, and human error. Handling classified information and protecting
vital secrets is a fluid, dynamic process subject to the vagaries of human nature. What is required
are people who have the competence and good judgment to operate in the zone of tension between
divergent goals--reducing secrecy (which includes limits on the ability of government officials to
classify documents) while protecting what needs to be protected.

A commendable feature of this report is its emphasis on accountability. Better accountability,
whether it comes through statute or through executive order, will work both ways: making sure that
unnecessary classification does not happen, and also that a sudden zeal for openness does not
inadvertently compromise highly sensitive information.

Personnel Security

The need to clear people for access to sensitive information may have been based, quite legitimately,
on fear of subversion by Communist agents in the Cold War. But the end of the Cold War does not
end that concern. Today America has enemies just as implacable in their hatred of the United
States, if not as threatening in their means, as the former Soviet Union.

Government officials, members of the Intelligence Community, and military personnel are still the
targets of attempts to "turn" them. The blandishments of foreign intelligence services may be even
more numerous because the end of the Cold War has spawned many new sources of possible
subversion. Of course, attempts to subvert are now based less on ideological recruitment, as was
common in the Cold War, than on simple greed, as we are already seeing in this supposedly
post-ideological age. In streamlining and standardizing the personnel security system, the U.S.
cannot afford to compromise in any degree the requirement for stability and loyalty in the people who
will have access to classified material.

Security of Information Systems

The most valuable service of this Commission may prove to be its emphasis on the security of
automated information systems, a crucial area of national vulnerability. It is in this area where the
countervailing goal of openness may have the most destructive effects if we are not careful. Computer
intrusions and attacks on the data banks of the Pentagon and U.S. Government laboratories are
now common. The communications and transportation infrastructure, as well as the entire banking
and financial structure of the United States, are computer-based and potentially vulnerable to
hackers or hostile powers. Successful attacks on America's automated data handling and storage
systems could wreak more havoc than a conventional military attack.

This area of concern will be the most difficult to address through legislation because the problems
are highly technical and because information technology is not static, but subject to fast-paced
change. Legislation that attempts to protect the security of information systems is likely to be too
broad or too specific. If too broad, it will be useless; if too specific, it will soon be outmoded by the
rapid march of technology. Nevertheless, we must try to steer a course through these two shoals,
revisiting the issue annually in Congress if need be to ensure that our vital computer-based and
automated information systems are protected.

Conclusion

In public policy there is often an equal and opposite reaction to government abuse. Because government
secrecy has been abused, we must not overreact and send the pendulum swinging too far in
the opposite direction. The government must be made to discharge its superfluous secrets and
behave in a more open manner. Government officials must be more subject to limits on what they
can classify. But in our rush to widen access, we must not compromise vital secrets, nor betray
those who have risked their lives and fortunes to confide in us. We must make sure greater access
and openness do not become a remedy more deadly than the disease they purport to cure.

The task of this Commission was not easy; it required maintaining a balance between conflicting
obligations. Walking the fine line between greater openness and safeguarding the nation's security
took sound judgment, a discerning knowledge of America's history, and a deep appreciation of the
citizen's need for information in a self-governing society to make sound decisions. The nation was
immensely fortunate to have just such a man in Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan to chair this
Commission. I commend and thank him for his fine leadership. I also commend and thank my
Commission colleagues and the outstanding staff for their dedication to the nation's highest
interests which made the success of the Commission, and this report, possible.